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Hi, I planted some giant garlic at the back end of last autumn and it has now grown beautifully and is beginning to go to seed, the questions I have are:

1. Is this usual
2. Does it mean it's ready to come up
3. Should I cut the seed pod off

All advise gratefully received.

They're scapes - snap them off & use them like asparagus. They are truly delicious!

or......dip them in tempura batter and deep fry them

or.......slice them up and use them in a stir fry.

yep! Whichever way you use them, they're delish 8)

...to your other questions...

yep! it's usual (see recipe suggestions above!)

going to seed is a sure sign that the plant think it's done its bizz for the season, so, after you've cut off the seed heads & eaten them 8), keep an eye on the plants....I find that I get another couple of weeks of what is (hopefully?) growth of the bulb before leaf die-back & start falling over....then I get them up.

Is it possible to save the seed to use???And if so how would i go about doing it..any ideas out there??

You probably can, but the way to propagate garlic is to save the biggest cloves and plant those in October.

Is this the garlic that is called elephant garlic?  Does it have cloves like normal or is it one large bulb!

I have never tried these big ones and would be interested to see how they turn out for other people!

Old Bird
;D

Heffalumps have a massive buld consisting of 5-6 cloves. Each clove in a decent sized bulb is almost the size of a normal garlic bulb. It's very sweet and mild, and I often use a whole bulb in a big pot of food.

4 years ago I brought back bulbs from New York....it had been grown in Chile. I'm still growing superb garlic from saved cloves and I've sent cloves to friends here over the years.

A well-travelled garlic, then 8)

It's lovely roasted slowly with olive oil. You don't peel the cloves.When they feel soft you spread the glorious goo onto toast. A real treat :D

This is indeed elephant Garlic, when we planted it it was one big bulb, it's the first time we've planted this variety, will put some pics on when we dig it up, so you can see what it looks like.

If it's Elephant "Garlic" then the flowers might not be so nice...

Elephant garlic flowers are as nice as any others. I stirfried mine last week.

Good... it has a funny taste to me, annoyingly. Some things do (like milk 2 days before it turns!)...

Im still wondering if garlic seed can be used !As im in to saving seed this year with the prices going up all the time,surely garlic starts from seed  in the first place before  the bulb thingy

Quote from: STEVEB on June 15, 2008, 21:49:22
Im still wondering if garlic seed can be used !As im in to saving seed this year with the prices going up all the time,surely garlic starts from seed  in the first place before  the bulb thingy

This has got me thinking. In all the years I've been growing garlic, I've never seen it go to seed, and I've left plenty of bulbs in the soil when I shouldn't have. Onions and leeks yes, have let them go to seed and collected the seed, and its grown ok.

Modified to add: maybe if elephant garlic is a relative of the leek, you would be able to save seed from it if it produces any.

You can probably save seed, but I don't know whether it would come true.

Both garlic & elephant garlic produce bulbils on the scapes which are full of seed. This takes a lot of the plants energy so you get significantly smaller bulbs. The seeds can be eaten & have a very strong garlic flavour unlike the mild taste of the scapes. The seeds are very popular in China where they are made into a sweet garlic pickle. The seeds can be planted and will come true, regular garlic seeds planted in the autumn will produce full size bulbs the following year but elephant garlic seed requires 2-3 years growth before producing full size bulbs.
Garlic bulbils look like this.

Elephant garlic also produces small bulbils attached to the bulbs which can be treated the same way.

That pic looks just like my Walking Onions  ;D

Mine have thicker stems than that, but yes, it is similar. These have been grown on for two years from the little bulbs.